Defector’s plea: Don’t send me back

A Chinese activist who fled to Taiwan is holed up in a local airport, pleading authorities no to send him back to his country.

"I hope to seek asylum in the United States or Canada. I request for friends to appeal to Taiwan's government to please not send me back to China," Chen Siming wrote on X from the transit area of Taoyuan International Airport.

Chen said he fled China three months ago because the methods used by authorities "to maintain stability are becoming more brutal."

He also alleged that Chinese authorities had detained him in the past, confiscated his phone, and conducted a psychiatric evaluation on him.

"I could no longer endure (it)… so I fled China on 22 July," Chen wrote. "On September 22, I finally arrived in Taiwan, the island of freedom."

According to Radio Free Asia, Chen first traveled to Laos after leaving China in July, before crossing into Thailand.

But due to worries about being sent to immigration prison in Thailand — a country with a track record of deporting dissidents — he bought a return ticket to China that transited via Taiwan, RFA said.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council has not responded to requests for comment on Chen's current status.

In 2019 two Chinese dissidents spent more than four months trapped in limbo at Taiwan's airport after fleeing China.

WITH AFP